Launched to coincide with the start of the domestic football season, Paddy Power extended its #unsponsorship initiative by rolling out a comic commercial that calls on rival betting brands to stop treating football kits as gaudy brand billboards.
The betting brand continues its ‘Save Our Shirt’ mission, which calls on advertisers and football partners to stop ruining and bastardising football shirts, with a TV spot debuting on Friday 2 August on Sky Sports as the new season kicked off.
The latest phase of the campaign, developed by creative agency VCCP and sport and entertainment agency Octagon, mocks football-shirt sponsorship by featuring players donning kits with comically absurd branding set in related daft situations: such as ‘Grumpy Pigeon’, ‘Little Blue Pill’, Guitar Airway’ and ‘Mr Softy’ set to ‘I Love My Shirt’ by Donovan.
The ad features a series of scenes of different supporters trying to cover up their audacious and embarrassing sponsorship logos.
The spot closes with a voiceover concluding: “Wouldn’t it be great if your footy shirt looked less like a billboard? That’s why Paddy Power have launched ‘Save Our Shirt’ where every team we sponsor, we’re unsponsoring and they won’t have our logo at all.”
This commercial celebrates and extends a campaign which has unfolded through its sponsorship/unsponsorship of Huddersfield Town FC, Motherwell FC, Newport County FC, Southend United FC and Macclesfield Town FC.
The campaign was developed for Paddy Power marketing Director Michelle Spillane, Head Of Brand David Sandall and Emer McCarthy, Head Of PR Lee Price, Marketing Manager Will Gunton, Brand Manager by a VCCP team which included Executive Creative Director VCCP Blue Mark Orbine, Creative Directors Kevin Masters and Christine Turner, Creatives Chris Willis and Paul Kocur, TV Producer Simon Plant, Planning Director Christine Asbury, Planners Max Macbeath, Head of Account Management VCCP Blue Philip Higham and Account Director Sam Daniels
The production company was Academy, the producer was Mark Whittow-Williams, the director was Peter Cattaneo, the editor was Nik Hindson @ The Assembly Rooms, post production flame was Darren Nicholson @ Framestore, the post production colourist was Steffan Perry, the post production producer was Emma Cook, with sound design by Parv Thind @ Wave, the lighting cameraman was Jim Jolliffe and the music was ‘I Love My Shirt’ by Donovan (Radford Music).
The media agency was Mediacom.
The initiative was created by an Octagon team including Head of UK Joel Seymour-Hyde, Planning Director Henry Nash, Creative Director Josh Green and Creatives Joe Stuart, Cos Georgiou, Charlie Warcup and Joe Goicoechea.
Comment:
It was in July that Paddy Power first teased this mission and set football fans into a frenzy with a brash over branded kit design for Huddersfield Town’s new shirt – in what turned out to be a hoaz aimed to drawing attention to the issue.
When the actual Huddersfield shirt was unveiled the design turned out to be sponsor-free.
This launch phase was quicky followed by #unsponsor partnerships with Motherwell, Newport County, Southend United and Macclesfield Town as the bookie called on its rivals to follow its lead and stop bastardising football shirts (see case study).
Michelle Spillane, brand marketing director at Paddy Power, said: “The response to the campaign has been phenomenal and we are delighted to be launching the next phase of our campaign and hope it inspires others to join our quest to give a clean shirt back to the fans.”
By subverting the norm Paddy Power will be hoping that its own brand will long be associated with the absence of garish, ugly on-shirt logos.
Links:
Paddy Power
https://www.youtube.com/user/PaddyPowerVideo
https://twitter.com/paddypower
https://www.facebook.com/paddypower
VCCP
Octagon
Mediacom
http://sportandentertainment.mediacom.com/
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